I get an error message saying "cannot open ddhelp.exe" while running games and various programs (that use direct x)

this may be the problem: my graphics card (apg) is on the same IRQ as my empty usb ports and empty pci ports.

this is most likely the problem:
DDraw is conflicting with ddhelp, they are both on version 4.8.1.881

When I try to run Direct X diagnostic tool, it says that it has a problem accesing directdraw (ddraw)

So I am concluding that DDraw or DDhelp are causing problems for me, and I dont know how to fix them.. I read I might be able to change the version they are on somehow, but how to is beyond my knowlege.

Reinstalling Direct X 8 doesn't work
I havn't been able to uninstall direct x, so if you can tell me how to do that it might help.

I have installed all the drivers I can think of and find. so that will not help, it is definitly those two files.

solve it and name how many points you want for it, im in deperate need of a solution to this problem!

A few more details may be helpful, like what O/S is on the box, which programs are affected, what processes running, are you on a network, what hardware besides a processor and a video card is involved etc.

Several things come to mind with just the details you give us.
Firstly whenever I have found the odd instabilities such as you describe I have noticed that the motherboard turned out to be a little dodgy-in other words it mostly worked but not quite.
Before we go to hardware have you got every update and driver from the appropriate websites? The board will have one as will the graphics card.

Your video card will be asking the most from the AGP part of the chipset, is the motherboard a stable enough base for it? What make and model is the board-is it a known good or bad one? If bad it needs changing.
Has the graphics card or cpu got a suitable fan? (Most motherboards can tell you in the bios what temp the CPU is at-nothing above 60c is best)
You can usually slow down thing in the BIOS like cache and ram timings-may be worth you exploring those.
If the above things don't work then explore swapping out ram.
Finally you can try swapping your graphics card. If you have an older AGP card or a pci card to borrow try those, restart in safe mode, set their drivers up and see if the problem disappears. If it does, well you know what to do. New card time.
The last thing to be a problem is the CPU but this WILL be unstable if the temperature is too high. A better fan will make a difference here...

Did you reinstall your OS (Win2000, WIn98, etc) after changing out the motherboard/CPU? If not then this is probably your problem. Reinstall your OS and that should help. Also ensure you have all the current drivers for your hardware.

ddhelp (I may be wrong here) is I think part of Direct X
since you ahve put in new components, make sure the device manager doesnt have any of the old stuff listed, should have that yellow ! on the icon.

http://209.213.197.10/Windows/28.32/28.32_win9x.exe
(This is for Win98/WinME, you didn't specify which OS you're running, but I'll assume one of these since you have a \windows folder and not \winnt which would indicate Windows NT Workstation 4.0 or Windows 2000)

It certainly is, if Pt1blank is using the Detonator drivers I linked above (and BOFH referred to). The GeForce 4 family is designed for DirectX 8! Try reinstalling the video driver and/or DirectX 8.1 again. The only way to remove DirectX (to go back to 7.0) is to reinstall Windows (well there are other ways, but they are *extremely* complicated and don't always work).

it doesn't have anything more the "fatal error running ddhelp.exe", there is nothing else that goes along with it. It just errors opening ddhelp

also sometimes I get a message that reads:
fatal error
program: war3.exe shut down (war3 is a game)
exception:access violation (with some memory numbers, if u want them ill give them to you)
Could not real memory

no way that was the problem. win98 doesn't effectively use more than 128mb of ram. if anything you had too much ram for that OS (can actually degrade performance in win98). do you mean you swapped out 256 & put 128 or you have added that in as well to give 384mb ?
my research suggests faulty ram or need to download the detonator driver for video card as suggested many times above.

I have the detonator driver, as long as every single driver above... I added the 128 stick of ram, making it 384 mb or ram.. I think its faulty ram too, but this fixed the problem so Im not gonna mess with it anymore

OK at least if it comes back your thinking along the right lines. Doesn't seem logical in a Win98 environment that 256 is not enough. Might want to leave this open for a while in case the problem rears it's ugly head again.
Only thing I can think here is maybe the 256 was in the wrong slot so adding the 128 has filled the correct bank.

either that or maybe the 256 chip has something wrong with it.. which is strange because it is brand new.. But in my old motherboard I had 384 ram.. maybe windows didn't like the sudden drop or something

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No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave a recommendation in the Cleanup topic area that this question is:
PAQ/Refund Points
Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.

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